|
When connecting multiple locations
together, the more locations you connect the larger and
more complicated your network gets, or the less efficient
it becomes. For example with only 2 branch offices in New
York and Los Angeles, an interconnection is very simple,
one direct connection from point A to point B. As you start
to add locations, and thus connection points, things start
to get more complicated.
Following
our example of a 4 location real estate company. There are
3 basic methods for connecting these 4 offices together,
called a ring, star, and mesh topology.
The
ring is basically a connection that "rings" the
various locations together.
The
star is called that because you create a central point in
the network and connect every other location to it.
The
mesh is so termed because you connect every network point
directly to every other network point, creating a topology
that looks like a mesh.
Looking
at the diagrams of the different topologies, you will see
numbers by the connections needed to sustain each type of
connection method. The ring requires 4 point to point connections.
Data passing to opposite points on the ring will have to
go through an interim point to meet its destination. The
star requires 3 connections, with the central point being
New York in this case. All traffic, even the data that does
not involve New York, must pass through New York before
arriving at its destination. The mesh requires 6 maintained
connections. While data will travel point to point directly,
this is at a cost of maintaining 2 additional connections.
This burden further increases, the more points you connect
|
